Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is becoming an increasingly prominent technology feature in user equipment (UE). The use of D2D communication enables a UE to discover and interact with other devices within the D2D communication range, for various purposes including information sharing. Various technologies are used to achieve D2D communications, including communications systems such as LTE Direct and WIFI Direct. Among the various technologies, LTE Direct may be gaining popularity based on the capability of LTE Direct compliant devices to perform device discovery on existing LTE spectrum and infrastructure, while consuming only a small percentage, such as around 1%, of WAN resources. WIFI Direct may also achieve acceptable D2D communication by enabling devices to connect directly with each other without a wireless access point. Some drawbacks of existing D2D communications technologies include the ability to communicate with all devices that are capable of being “seen” by a UE. While such capabilities have advantages, drawbacks arise.
For example, a WiFi Direct enabled UE may exchange device discovery request/response messages with every WiFi Direct devices in its range (e.g., where device presence is discovered). The device discovery is followed by service discovery (e.g., where device capabilities are discovered). A D2D enabled UE may discover only those devices that are within the communication range supported by the UE. However, there may be many devices within communication range. Once the UE discovers other devices in its proximity, D2D communication may be used to exchange data. In conventional D2D device selection approaches, the UE communicates with all of the discovered devices.
Drawbacks arise however, in that when discovered devices are at the outer edge of the UE coverage area, conventional D2D device selection approaches allow the UE to communicate with these far away devices despite the resulting power drain. In particular, the UE must use a greater uplink (Transmit) power level to communicate with devices at the edge of the coverage area compared to the uplink (Transmit) power required to communicate with the nearby devices, which in some instances is significantly less. With conventional device selection, even when the UE battery power is low, there is currently no way to restrict the devices with which the UE may communicate.